The Top 7 Musicians Who Got Caught Plagirising

Today Falling In Reverse released a brand new song called ‘Losing My Life‘ which serves as a continuation of their previously released single ‘Losing My Mind‘. The song features an old school 80’s synth vibe combined with frontman Ronnie Radke‘s chopping and changing from melodic singing to a fast rapping style, kinda similar to Eminem nowadays, but not as technical.

But here’s the real kicker, the song is pretty good but the artwork has raised a few eyebrows from hard rock music fans in Australia for it’s similarities between the album cover for our very own Bare Bones‘ debut album Bad Habits. From the jacket and skull, to the stance of the guy in the photo, to the bright neon lights and Japanese writing on the walls, it’s an obvious rip-off right? You can’t look at the below picture and deny this fact.

I reached out to the Bare Bones boys for comment and as it turned out, frontman Tom Kennedy hadn’t even seen the artwork before I flicked it over to him, but I think the response/quote he gave us best explains his opinions on the matter:

“Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, I mean we would sue him, but I think at this point old Ronald probably likes the inside of a court room” – Tom Kennedy

This hilarious turn of events got us thinking about the times bands/musicians have taken inspiration blatantly ripped off others and so we’ve collated our own list of The Top 7 Musicians Who Got Caught Plagiarising… Allegedly!

#7 – Kelly Clarkson rips off Jimmy Eat World’s ‘The Middle’

Pop Stars. They either live long enough to dominate the industry like KylieMinogue, turn old and stale like Madonna or eventually start taking inspiration/music from others like KellyClarkson did back in 2015. I remember playing this song during my commercial radio breakfast show and after it was finished, I went on tangent about artists ripping off others because of the fact it’s an obvious steal from Jimmy Eat World‘s absolute banger of a song ‘The Middle‘. The only different is Kelly’s version is slowed down a touch. Take a listen for yourself below:

Remember VanillaIce? Yeah, the old guy that’s been riding on the coattails of the same song for the last 28 years. Well did you know he blatantly tried to take one of the greatest rock ballads from Queen back in the day by sampling it without permission? ‘UnderPressure‘ was a masterpiece so it was no surprise they called in the lawyers when “Ice Ice Baby‘ was released in 1990 and it sounded strangely familiar to their song with DavidBowie. The lawsuit was settled out of court and VanillaIce did nothing of importance with his life following.

#5 – Jet took Iggy Pop’s riff and drum beat from ‘Lust For Life’

Aussie band Jet received massive success following the release of their album Get Born and it’s debut single ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl?” But, the truth is, all that attention and praise should have been given to IggyPop instead because IT’S BASICALLY THE SAME SOUNDING SONG. There’s nothing hidden in this at all, it is right there in the open for all to hear.

#4 – One Direction flogged New Found Glory’s ‘Steal My Girl’

Another one from my commercial radio years that still grinds my gears today. When One Direction‘s ‘StealMyGirl‘ came out there was no denying the fact you were actually listening to the opening piano bars of New Found Glory‘s classic ‘It’s Not Your Fault‘. Jordan Pundik of NFG even shared his thoughts on the flogging when he co-hosted our Wall of Sound: Up Against The Wallpodcast saying it would have been cool if the boys at least acknowledged they like New Found Glory so their fans could in turn become NFG fans.

Arguments erupted online at the time of release and even Paramore‘s HayleyWilliams (who was dating ChadGilbert at the time) got involved too, causing a bitter battle between pop punk and pop fans online

Afterwards, music lovers came out and said classic rock band Journey originally penned similar opening bars on their song ‘Faithfully‘, but this wasn’t the first time 1D were accused of stealing from others. Their song ‘Live While We’re Young‘ sounded very similar to The Clash‘s ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go‘ and the intro for their ‘Best Song Ever‘ was accused of ripping off The Who‘s ‘Baba O’Riley‘. At the end of the day, all the other bands lasted longer than One Direction‘s stint in the music business…

#3 – Avenged Sevenfold replicated Metallica’s ‘Sad But True’

Metallica are arguably the greatest and most popular metal band in the world right now (if you disagree, put your opinions on that matter aside for a second), whereas AvengedSevenfold WANT to be the greatest and most popular metal band in the world. So how do you go about trying to follow your idols? You downright allegedly replicate one of their biggest songs and try to pass it off as your own of course! A7X‘s ‘ThisMeansWar‘ from their 2014 album Hail To The King is pretty much their way of paying homage to ‘Tallica, but they’d never admit it.

When I caught up with then drummer ArinIlejay at SoundwaveFestival 2014 (interview here), he couldn’t even agree to disagree even though respected members of the heavy music community were quite vocal about their opinions on the matter including RobbFlynn from MachineHead who called Sevenfold’s release a “cover album”. Metallica still remains dominant and Avenged are still trying to climb that heavy metal ladder.

#2 – Coldplay jack Bring Me the Horizon’s steez… aka Album Cover

Probably one of the most ignorant jackings came from Coldplay back in 2015 when their new album cover artwork for A Head Full On Dreams was quite simply a colourful rip-off of Bring Me The Horizon‘s 2013 album Sempiternal.

Oli Skyes took to twitter to express his distaste for the copying and shortly after Coldplay frontman ChrisMartin came out stating he had no idea who BMTH were.

Everything seemed to die down shortly after all the accusations went back and forth between musicians and fans but Sykes got the last laugh when he destroyed Coldplay‘s table at the 2016 NME Awards when he jumped up on it mid-performance and thrashed about the place.

Yep. Sorry Metallica fans but it happened. Back in the late 90’s, sludge/doom metal band Crowbar released their fifth studio album Odd Fellows Rest which featured the faces of all four members on the front cover warped and blended together. Fast forward to 2016 and our four horsemen of the metal apocalypse released their album cover for their latest release which featured exactly the same idea, almost exactly the same facial expressions just with a touch of colour.

Crowbar frontman KirkWindstein (who coincidentally also shares the same first name as Metallica member KirkHammett… ok, that’s a stretch) pointed out the similarities on his Facebook page after Metallica‘s album cover designer Dimitri Scheblanov laughed about not knowing “who the fuck”Crowbar were, with Windstein revealing:

“In all fairness, after touring with the mighty Metallica while in Down , I know the fellas know who Crowbar is. However, I seriously doubt that any member of Metallica stole this idea from us. Maybe the artist? Anyway you slice it… it’s a cool cover idea!!! Now James and Lars, go listen to ‘Odd Fellows Rest‘!!! LOL”

Moral of the story, don’t take things that don’t belong to you or you’ll go in time out… or lists like these for the rest of your careers. Balls in your court Ronnie and Falling in Reverse... good song though!